Leinster Senior League Update

Last week saw a solid start to the league for our Men’s 1st XV through a home win with a 50-33 scoreline v fellow AIL division 1B members MU Barnhall. 

With that important win involving us scoring 8 tries, we had been treated to an impressive mixed array of attacking rugby in Stradbrook for the Leinster Senior League opener. 

This weekend brought us to Merrion Road to face AIL division 2A side, Wanderers. 

The game opened with a tense 20 minutes of them impressively enforcing their game on us and dominating much of the possession. Those efforts were fairly rewarded for them on 14 minutes with an opening try in the corner to make it 5-0. 

That score triggered a Rock response and we started to impose ourselves more on them and a combination of starting to win more primary possession and getting our attacking plays going with greater speed and accuracy reaped its rewards with an Emmet Burns opening try on 30 minutes. 

This sparked a 10 minute spell of dominance with a mixed bag of styles in tries scored by Louie Maguire, (34 mins), and Colm Quilligan on the half to go in 5 - 17 at the break. 

The second half started as the first half had closed with 20 minutes of dominance seeing an opening superb individual strike in Wanderers 22 off our line out by Max Brophy for his try on 5 minutes and another try on 12 minutes by Fionn Dougan to make it 5 - 31. 

Wanderers struck back well, albeit somewhat against the run of play on 21 minutes to move the scoreline to 12 - 31. 

Ernie O’Brien who had made a real impact off the bench, struck well for our 6th try on 34 minutes into the second half and Wanderers hit back almost immediately to finish the scoring at 19 - 36, despite us coming incredibly close to another try on the final whistle. 

Huge thanks to all at Wanderers for a great match and for the hospitality at Merrrion Road. 

Congratulations to all our players involved, especially those winning their maiden 1st XV appearances for Blackrock College RFC… 

Emmet Burns 

Lorcan Golden

Brian McCarthy

Conor Hillecamp 

Ernie O’Brien 

This was another solid and very competitive league win achieved, which will now see us play very strong AIL division 1B opponents, Naas, on the weekend of 11th / 12th / 13th September in Donnybrook. 

Between these two Leinster Senior League games and the first friendly v Terenure, we have now fielded 44 different players, including 19 making their first time appearance for our Men’s 1st XV, a testament to the huge work put in all summer behind the scenes! 

We look forward to seeing huge support at the Final, in an exciting push for Leinster Senior League silverware before the main billing of the Energia All Ireland league which kicks off in Stradbrook on Saturday, 26th September.